21: Why Lockdowns are Traumatizing America's Kids

JJ is joined by Nancy Kislin, psychotherapist, licensed clinical social worker and a professor with over 28 years of experience. Nancy is calling into today to talk about why lockdowns, which are meant to help students prepare in case of a shooting, are in fact damaging to the mental health of students. Nancy provides parents, caregivers, academic staff, and first responders with explanations of how lockdown drills work, as well as inexpensive, common-sense solutions to the problem of poorly-designed lockdown drills.

In this episode, we cover: 

• how lockdown drills are designed;
• the lack of research around lockdown drills;
• what lockdown drills mentally do to students and staff;
• how parents can talk to their kids about school violence; and 
• what parents should be doing about lockdown drills. 

If you have a student in school, this is NOT an episode to miss. 

For more information on Brady, follow us on social @Bradybuzz, or via our website at bradyunited.org. Full transcripts and bibliography available at bradyunited.org/podcast.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255. 
Music provided by: David “Drumcrazie” Curby
Special thanks to Hogan Lovells, for their longstanding legal support 
℗&©2019 Red, Blue, and Brady 

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:08

[inaudible].

Speaker 2: 0:08

Hey everybody, this is the legal disclaimer or retell you the views, thoughts and opinion shared on this podcast belong solely to JJ, the person talking again alone to you right now and not necessarily Brady or Brady's affiliates. Please note that this podcast contains discussions of violence that some people may find disturbing. It's okay. I find it disturbing.

Speaker 1: 0:41

[inaudible] welcome back

Speaker 2: 0:43

everybody to red, blue and Brady, the podcast all about gun violence prevention. Today I'm flying solo. As you know, JP has another job trying to save lives and such. What can you do? Luckily, I'm joined by a therapist, Nancy Caslin, licensed clinical social worker is here to discuss how lockdown drills and the everyday realities of gun violence are harming the children of America then and are unbelievable, but segment, I'm warning you about the dangers of cats with GATS. Finally, we're wrapping up with everyone's favorite segment. Drum roll. Well, I guess I'm alone so I can't really drum roll, but imagine a drum roll here or gun violence prevention hero of the week.

Speaker 1: 1:27

[inaudible]

Speaker 2: 1:27

well, Nancy, thank you so much for joining red, blue, and Bree today. I know that I'm really excited to talk to you. I know that our listeners are going to be really excited to hear what you have to say and I just want to start by saying I'm so thankful that you called in today. I know that since we're working off of a phone, it might be a little hard for us to hear each other at times, but I think this is something that we absolutely have to discuss. So before we get into the nitty gritty of it, would you mind introducing yourself to our audience please?

Speaker 3: 1:56

Sure. Thank you so much for inviting me here today. It is quite an honor to join. I am Nancy. I am a licensed clinical social worker postmasters in marriage and family counseling and Jen professor and most recent I wrote a book locked down talking to your children about school violence and I am extremely passionate about getting the message out there that we are, the adults in this country are traumatizing the generation of kids and we're raising them to be fearful. We really need to start talking about what is happening. So thanks for having me. What made you turn to focusing on gun violence? I mostly spend my time in my private practice in New Jersey. I specialize in working with middle school and high school kids and their parents. I say treat the family. And what I've been noticing certainly the last five years, a dramatic increase in not only seeing kids with anxiety and depression, but seeing the level that they're suffering in quite noticeable and quite dramatic as well as self harming behaviors, whether it be addiction, drugs, alcohol, cut in suicide. And with that as sort of brings me to February 14 2018 when I was checking my phone, I'm looking on Facebook in between plans and a friend of mine posted that her daughter was in a closet and she lived in Parkland in the closet. And I started scrolling through and that's when I learned what was happening. And right in the middle as that nightmare was unfolding, I had to see my next middle school kid who was walking. She has anxiety cause she know what happened. Did her mom say anything to her in the car? What's the news she got in the car, et cetera. And so I kind of stumbled my way through asking questions. What does she know? And I found myself repeating that with each of the kids. And by the third day, something really dramatic, hi Nancy just spends her days with these wonderful kids, didn't quite understand what was really happening to kids with lockdown drugs. So when I found where these kids were telling me these harrowing stories, I would bring mom or dad, whoever was picking them up and include them in the conversation. Moms are crying, dads are crying by that weekend. I had never written a book before I went out and I just started talking to anyone and everyone, every child, parent, mental health, professional clergy member. And I just made my world. That was my mission. So for eight months I went out there collecting now also collected these incredible stories. And what I found is nobody's really talking about what is happening to our kids. We're traumatizing a generation of children and nobody's talking about it. Parents don't even know. So that's sorta how I kinda got on this path. Well and it's amazing that you're doing research in this area because this is something that I think not only is not talked about, but it is certainly something that is not studied. Right. I did find myself in a brave new world and what I found was it certainly helped having my professor. What I found as I started talking to the ball, started doing my own that I found no research that I can rely on that would say, show me the research that supports why we're having these lockdown drills once a month, 42 States in our country have state mandated that we have to have these drugs. Yet I could not find any statistics that support why we even created those laws, which I found fascinating. I have yet to find any university that even the ones that are well known as doing some gun violence research. Anyone who's done any research on the traumatization of kids through this, it's interesting to me because the point of a lockdown drill, the reason why an administrator or a school will start a lockdown drill is from the idea that it will help children. In the event of an active shooter situation or in the event of a shooting in a school, but what you're saying is is that we don't actually have the empirical data to say that it does help. Exactly and from the lot enforcement mindset, I understand, yes, this is a potential danger seen something terrible could happen here. Book we've had, but I think from what I believe and what I found that he was really, the change happened not after Columbine but really after Sandy. That's when we became very reactive state and very panic. Oh my God, how are we going to keep these kids safe? We have to lock down and so whether we call it the hardening of the schools and all this federal money is coming down to harden the schools, but I find is we forget that the latest statistics and I have is that roughly a hundred people dying from gun violence in our country. Unacceptable point. Zero 1% of children die per day in a school shooting. Yes. Look at that number. It's so profound because that is our reality. Then having lockdown drills, active shooter drills and drills. Once a month without proper training of the teachers or the staff of parent education. We're l eaving the children literally on the f ront l ine of trauma and we're not giving them any resources. And it's so interesting to me that that seems to be the focus because again, numerically, we know that we lose eight children a day who are shot and are killed from family fire, from a gun and properly stored in the home. And we don't do these sweeping government mandated drills for that a nd in the home. So do you think it's a lot of almost misplaced fear and anxiety or is it just f ear a nd anxiety t hat k id shouldn't be feeling at all because parents should be taking, I think it's become so complicated. I mean, so you, you talk in the book about how American children sort of live in this climate of fear though because of it, because of the sort of reactive way in which we've dealt with gun violence as opposed to a, maybe a proactive way. But I was wondering if you could sort of take our listeners who maybe haven't talked to their kids are like me don't have kids and are of the, I would just go post Columbine, but obviously before Sandy hook, so I went through maybe I think two drills the entire time I was a student and they were sort of tied in with the post nine 11 terror anxiety. So could you maybe take us through like a standard lockdown drill or an active shooter drill and then maybe then talk about the like the different things in there that can traumatize a kid. Sure, sure. So I start my programs as follows. Want everyone, you invite your audience. Everyone should take a seat and just sit down. Take a few deep breaths, close your eyes if you feel comfortable. And I want you to go back, go back to your elementary school, pick a class, any grade, and bring yourself to that classroom. Remember who you are sitting there, who your teacher was even. Can you imagine what that classroom is to smell like? What the noises in the hallway were. Just immerse yourself

Speaker 4: 10:15

and then lockdown, lockdown, lockdown, the teacher jumps stuff. You jumped up. Lockdown, lockdown, lockdown.

Speaker 3: 10:31

If you were trained, you pick up the bag of rocks that you keep hitting your desk or you pick up a heavy book nearby and you run to your designated hiding place. Meanwhile, the teacher, she opens the door to the hallway, she gathers any kids that are in the hallway close by and she calls them into the classroom, closes the door. If there's a little window on the doorway, she pulls the sheet, she turns the lights off, she runs to the classroom windows and closes the blinds and she then joints and you wait. You don't know what's really happening. You don't know if it's a jail. Depending on your teacher, you might have been told that when the shooter comes in the door, he ready to throw things at the shooter and you wait and depending on the school pending on that day, it could go on for 10 20 even 40 minutes and then when you can't take it anymore, all of a sudden you'd hear someone rattled up the door. You hear someone trying to get in her locked door, you're here. You might even hear adults screaming on the other side and you wait and, and then a voice over the loud speaker will say, lockdown drill is over. I'm sorry if I just upset, but I hope that it will cue up because this is what's happening once a month, if not more to children all around America. This is in addition to, so one of my missions get parents to talk about this is several reasons. Starting off with that, we aren't getting our kids skills to sit in the dark with the reality and this is what's happening and we're not talking about it. We certainly aren't teaching them what to do. So here is breathing exercises and we know there's lots of great research out there that got these techniques. Good habit. So I teach kids basically put their hands on their belly, feel their breath, go in and out, take several deep breaths and there's all kinds of tickets. Spend a lot of time doing that, but really learn how to use their breath to calm them down, distract themselves to feel like there's something they can do when they're in a controllable situation to do. The other thing I start with is education. You need to know what these jobs are. You need to have conversations with your school board, with your superintendent, with your principals. You want to know what protocols are your kid's school using? What is the messaging that the school is telling the teachers to say? Is it part of your school culture that tells the teachers to tell the children that in essence, Hey, you're going to be a marketer today because I've actually had this too many times where superintendents tell their teachers to tell their children that it's their responsibility. Check. Stop the shooter, the throw shoes to throw books to Google Chromebooks. Yeah. I have. Just the other day a woman raised her hand and said, she's a teacher and she keeps right behind the door and all the kids know that whoever's closest to that door when the lockdown happens, it's their job to pick up that that, are you kidding me? You're telling the second grader it's their job to stop someone from gun. And I think that that is what's striking to me is the idea of trying to explain to someone who is a kindergartener say or even a fourth grader go a little older. Trying to even explain to them what a shooter is, what death is, is already a very complicated conversation to have and to have. Well I can't imagine adding on with, and by the way, small child, you are now responsible for the lives of like 20 other people. Unbelievable. And on top of that is the underlying message that's coming out huge to that child, sweetie, you are not safe. That's why we need you to throw this bag of rocks. And what do we know about children and childhood is that children need to feel safe, which is a hard thing to do in today's world. So what about students who are already maybe in a, in a fearful situation. So we know in terms of again statistic wise that we lose more people to suicide than in mass shootings and we lose more people and sort of what would be called everyday gun violence. Then we do to mass shootings. So what about students that have already had to deal with say a shooting in the home or are shooting up the sort of adjacent to or who live in communities that feel almost targeted in terms of having high incidences of violence when they go to this place? They used to feel safe school. Great. A story in my book is one day I was taking a walk around the reservation and it borders on newer the New Jersey. So the start is I'm taking my work and I see a mother with three children and me being me, I couldn't help the kid who look like me about 14 or 15 points across the reservation and says to his mom, if someone gets shot pointing to the far side of the reservation, he says, how long do you think of be taking an ambulance to go and get him? And she turns and says, why is everything about what happens if someone gets shot? And I kind of scooted myself and got in line and said, I don't remember what I said, but somehow I joined the conversation and I said I was writing and a woman was ready to kind of, Oh, you should talk to these two. And she ended up walking eight miles that day. And I had the most fascinating conversation with these two amazing people who told me my mom worries about us getting shot going to school more than she worries about us being shot in school. And that was a wake up call to me that I really had to pay attention to what I call this collective trauma. Because we don't know what each child brings in there, what I call baggage, so we don't know if this child has seen violence in the home. When I found this is a roading, that child's sense of feeling safe and that's why I then I started going into rural areas, different parts of the country, and what I found was across the board I was in Newark or San Diego or Santa Monica. These kids are being traumatized. Do we know that all kids are being traumatized? Of course I can say that. What I can say is in trauma, I've been trained that we have the little tease and the big small traumas. We don't know. Like I said, how many someone comes with, we don't know what is going to be that experienced that one lockdown drill that went too long that day. One of the most profound stories that I collected over my years of research is the story. About a few months after the shooting happened, her school was gate up the message to all the students that they would not have drills without identifying the drill all at the fall. The kids know which on the surface that's good. Production-wise, that sort of, especially because these kids we can figure really is about the bathroom in a rude to her classroom. When she hears the lockdown, a lockdown, she does what she's instructed. Many parents have no idea, so listen carefully. She's instructed like every child in America to run to the nearest classroom door as soon as they hear the lockdown. Remember what I said earlier? The teacher is instructed to open that door and clear. Anyone who's close by is about runs to the nearest classroom. Door is already locked. She goes to the next door. The next door is found in her fetal position crying hysterical. Her mom said that Isabel had not returned and it didn't. Six weeks. They're straight as and stuff. I need. Sure. I got Isabelle some referrals and I went on my mission to use this story because it's so profound. I'm in a school doing the training for a hundred teachers and at the end of the auditorium where we were, there was their director of security. So the man who is this person giving me, I can include my program and he comes up to me and he proceeds to say, don't you know what the protocol is? He says that story about Isabel, don't you know that is what we are trained to do. And I said, excuse me. He said, we have to sacrifice a few to save the masses. I lean directly, give the parents a permission slip for them to sign in the beginning of the year that science damn okay with their child being sacrificed. He turned around, work away from me, but seriously, this is what we are doing. Parents need to know that their kids are going to school where the adults in charge are training all the staff that we know we're going to have to stop on the other side of that. Of course, we know that it's better for that teacher to lock that classroom and not that I'm not getting into that discussion. That discussion has to be a huge discussion, but parents can even have that conversation if they don't even know what the calls. So I think this is such an important, and what we're focusing on is just the hardening of the school's just training these teachers and to do, it's a mess. And I call it just one big chaotic, very professional term.

Speaker 2: 22:14

Well, no, I mean I think it fits. I've definitely described things as a dumpster fire before on this podcast, so trust me, you are, you were fine. Or what I'm hearing is that there are a lot of times kids aren't necessarily coming home or telling parents or schools aren't telling parents that, Hey, we're having a drill or you know, Hey, we had a drill. So your kid is coming home today. Possibly traumatized. How if, if you're a parent or like the caretaker of, of a young person, how do you bring up the idea of, of, Hey, have you guys gone through a lockdown drill? Did you have a lockdown drill today? How do you have that hard conversation where I could see a kid asking someone like, Hey mom, dad, like, am I going to die? Am I going to get shot? Why? Why do people do these things? Right? This is a really complicated thing. Oh, amazing.

Speaker 3: 23:03

Amazing questions all happening. So let's start with, I like the idea of parents. If the drills are happening and we can come back to that often suggest to parents to get curious. I want you to get curious. Be the storyteller. Don't be the investigator. Don't be pointing your finger at them and say, Oh my goodness, you didn't tell me because you have a drill this week. You can start. Oh, I just talking to my friend Mary, you're having coffee. She was telling me that her son's school, they just started having different kind of lockdown drill. They started having evacuation drills. Do you know what that is? Pause silence. I know you're anxious, mom. I know you're nervous, but this is if you want to help your child and you want to gather more information, which I think is a really good, you have to manage your own anxiety. Talk to people like me, talk to your friends. Just don't sledge your kids with Martin anxiety. I also like, is it hard to sit still that mom eating in the closet? Things like that. Invite the child to you. Right? It's not saying, I can't believe you could sit that long. Invite. Wow. I never had those kind of drills when I was growing up. What did the other kids do when you're sitting there? Pause. Wait. Also I suggest to parents is don't be afraid to bring up this uncomfortable topic. That is what I see is parents are fine. It's normal. It's not normal. There is nothing philosophy that these kids are okay, so the kid says, yeah, I'm fine. Okay, so let's stop there though and share how it's okay to be vulnerable. It's okay to have emotion. Then I always use these two words and it could be on this topic or any topic. Validate, validate, validate, validate, validate. Your child's experience acknowledged, put your phone down and look them straight in the eye. Let them know what they're saying and who they are. The most important thing to you, because this is really up there on the scale of what's most important is the conversations no one's having and you need to have it with your kid now, so just not bring it up around your kids. The avoidance is not the answer for this. Never good idea, but especially with this, because that is just reinforcing to them that they're supposed to be okay with this and that's the dangerous rabbit hole that everyone's gone through going, no, this is not normal. There is nothing normal about children hiding armed or not waiting for someone to kill them. And that's why I have several changes that don't cost schools and any money and parents can ask for no laws in this country that say that these lockdowns have to be lock downs without having the word drill. There's no law that says we can't tell the children. Simply call the jail. I mean, there's absolutely no research than I or anyone. There's research to support that. Traumatizing the child by thinking is the real thing. We're being taught that the more times we try to use that word, the more time we traumatize a kid, the better their chances of do whatever you can recognize. Parents speak to the powers that be. Add the word drill every second one is either why don't schools please, please schools, email the parents. The day that the drill happened. Hey, we had a journal today. It was a lockdown drill. It was a shooter, an active shooter drill. Everything went fine. It lasted 20 minutes, so now th at parent has it on their radar, they didn't bring that topic up today. The third thing I want schools to do is I want more training for teachers. I don't blame any of this. Teachers, teachers, you know, you didn't sign up, right? Teachers didn't sign up to be in this position, so most schools get the teachers under two hours of training on. Realistically that training is 95% logistics. What to do, how to do it all fine. I'm saying at least in our training, what are words that are less traumatizing for children? What should you, if little Johnny is throwing up because he's so scared. And then my last day I had many more, but the one that I'm so proud of, parents, listen, anyone know what happens? As soon as the drill is over, as soon as that trail is over, I will tell you 100% of the schools and the teachers and the kids I interviewed minute, the second half trail is over. There comes in, the children have to return to their previous work. That means that they're in the middle of algebra. They go back to their algebra problem. The problem are not, we cannot go from that level to regular math problems. I call it the double assault because one, we're putting children through this. We're not talking about the fact that this was not normal. This was upsetting. So I might look at you and I might, I don't know that kind of reaction inside and you're struggling. So I think what's from me, I'm the only one. So I introduced the two minute pause. It's very simple. Instead of having my kids have the expectation that they're supposed to go right back to work, we have a tumor kindergarten, let them skip around the classroom routine times, older kids jumping jacks, high schoolers do some yoga poses do that with all of them. I don't care knowing that we are recognizing that you just went through this uncomfortable situation and we're going to give you two minutes to help your body reset.

Speaker 2: 30:05

So we, we've seen a lot of reports now to that. This what is sometimes being called generation locked down. This younger generation are increasingly, you know, the most anxious on record that they have high rates of PTSD. We had uh, another lovely Brady folk person on Joan Peterson and one of our first podcasts and she talked about how she thinks in some way, shape or form. Most people in the U S are dealing with some with gun violence related to PTSD. What would you say to folks who say, well, you know, I went through the nuclear bomb drills. I went through the, you know, terror drills as a kid. So I, and I was fine. Why aren't these kids fine too?

Speaker 3: 30:43

Do you know? I'm hear this every time I do a program and I always have stories. I love stories. Give me all the stories. So I am in a training somewhere doing mental health training and there is a woman probably in her sixties chicken, our head, one client, she couldn't take it anymore I guess and she raises her hand and she says, I went to nuclear lockdowns and she went detail. She went on for a while and I let her finish. She looked at her and she said, when did you meet for lunch? What did you use to wear? What did your mom say to you before she got to know what you're talking about? She said, exactly. You just spent five minutes of our workshop telling us what the drills were like. And so I would say you have posttraumatic stress, maybe not severe, but you certainly were trawling towels by those jokes. So whenever someone brings up that question that is my story, doesn't mean that might impede her life in any way. But we can't just assume that because that generation, the second thing is our kids don't have the luxury of not thinking could happen here.

Speaker 2: 32:16

But one of the things that I think that you do so well is bring up how to have these conversations, but also what parents should absolutely not do.

Speaker 3: 32:25

You talked about once

Speaker 2: 32:26

a child in particular who says, well, I can't talk about anything like this cause my mom just gets so upset and says, you know, if I died, she die and how that's, that's a terrible thing

Speaker 3: 32:35

to do. So I was wondering if you had any sort of, as we close out,

Speaker 2: 32:40

any final words about, you know, what absolutely should you not be doing as a parent or an administrator or Hey, you know, someone working in gun violence prevention, what should we absolutely not be doing?

Speaker 3: 32:50

It's such a great first thing that comes to mind. No, your own triggers. No. How does it learn how to keep yourself calm when you come to that child? You're responsibility and you need to have that child feel. Keep going back to that. Don't be a strain. Don't use code words. Oh, we can't talk about that. Get them upset. Oh my God, our kids are smarter than me, or who are we kidding? They come in my office, they tell me, my mom thinks I didn't see the text that happened. We do have that happen in our time. Be aware, paying attention, be present, be present to your child. There's so much. Yes, it can be overwhelming to you as a parent saying. One other thing I wanted to throw in there was I hope to empower your towns today to be empowered that we have to have this conversation and I'm here to help because if you're, like a lot of the school districts that I've been in contact with, you may get pushed out, but jumpy, afraid to fight. It's your kids. It's you were fighting for. The people that pushed back are usually pushing, add up their own fear. Dan, awesome responsibility to keep your kids alive. I get it. You're not saying don't keep your kid. You're saying, let's expand this conversation. Let's include looking through the lens of the mental, emotional and social health

Speaker 2: 34:38

and I think people are kind of shocked too to know that like, you know this applies to private schools too. The supply applies to religious schools and things.

Speaker 3: 34:46

That's a great point is many times I've come across this Karen's thing because they're paying for their kids to be in private schools. Their kids aren't. That's no excuse for you to not have the conversation with your kids and the school. How did schools do you have a little more leeway where they don't have to have drills. Just half, half a conversation. Go and talk to your school, find out if they're doing active shooter drills. You want to know why you want to ask that one? Nothing good can come from.

Speaker 2: 35:29

Thank you so much for joining us, Nancy. We really do hope that you can come back sometime soon and answer some questions from and parents, this is such an important issue and thank you so much for your work on it.

Speaker 5: 35:44

[inaudible]

Speaker 2: 35:44

and now it's time for our unbelievable story of the week. We've previously talked about dogs shooting people, but now it is time to be fair to our feline friends. Yes, that's right. A feline got felonious and shot a man. That is a lot of alliteration and yes, I am proud of myself. Now, how does a feline almost catch a felony? Don't worry. I'm going to tell you a man was cooking in his kitchen when he was unintentionally shot by his cat. Apparently the cat knocked his nine millimeter hand gun onto the floor discharging the weapon. Yes, you heard that right? A 29 year old Michigan man was shot in his lower torso when his cat knocked his loaded gun off the kitchen counter while he cooked dinner. Can I be mean and suggest that the cat just didn't like what was on the menu? Maybe some misplaced anger because the cats meal wasn't served before. It's human took care of himself. Seriously though. All cat owners now, those jerks live to knock things over. Do not leave a loaded weapon out casually anywhere, but especially not if you've got an angry or hungry cat on the loose and as a cat owner, I can tell you are always[inaudible].

Speaker 5: 36:51

[inaudible]

Speaker 2: 36:52

are gun violence prevention heroes this week are by popular demand, the countless and mostly unnamed citizens of Santa Clarita who took in students fleeing from the sagas high school shooting so many people living in the surrounding areas and parents dropping off their own children, sheltered and provided for students in the confusing aftermath. These adults did what we should all be doing, protecting our youth. For this, we award them our GVP heroes of the week. If you have someone or a group of someones who you think we should know about, please let us know at Brady united.org/podcast or on social at Brady buzz

Speaker 5: 37:37

[inaudible].

Speaker 2: 37:37

Thanks for listening. As always, Brady's lifesaving work and Congress, the courts and communities across the country is made possible. Thanks to you. For more information on Brady or how to get involved in the fight against gun violence, please like and subscribe to the podcast. Get in touch with us. At Brady united.org or on social app. Ready? Buzz, be brave and remember. Take action not side.

Speaker 1: 38:22

[inaudible]

Speaker 5: 38:25

[inaudible].